


What Comes Before Us

by Unbeanlievable



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Backstory, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unbeanlievable/pseuds/Unbeanlievable
Summary: Kravitz has been dead for as long as he can remember. He knows that there was once a time when he was alive and lived as a mortal on the material plane. He doesn't remember much from his life, and logically Kravitz knows that whatever happened in his previous life should hardly matter. After all he has the Raven Queen and now he also has his family on the material plane. Still, in the dark of night when Kravitz can barely remember how to sleep he can't help but dwell on the few memories he has retained from his life.





	What Comes Before Us

Kravitz has been a bounty hunter for the Raven Queen for as long as he could remember. Yes there was a time before he was in his Lady’s service when he was alive and had a family, but he’s been dead for so long that he hardly remembers his life before and therefore it should hardly matter. 

Sometimes though Kravitz will get strange flashes of remembrance. These memories, if they could even be called memories considering how vague they are, often accompany a strong sense of longing for the life he led before. Before Kravitz met Taako these brief flashes would occur so infrequently that Kravitz wrote them off as unimportant. Though as Kravitz spends more time amongst the living, and as he himself begins to become more alive, he finds that these flashes of memories are happening on a more regular basis and are becoming more specific and less vague. He begins to remember specific events and people. Instead of brief flashes of teasing laughter, comforting embraces, and mind numbing pain his thoughts are now consumed by memories of seeing a concert for the first time and the feeling of grandeur that overtook him as he watched the conductor lead his orchestra from the nosebleed seats they had spent months saving up for. 

Kravitz tries not to dwell on these memories. After all, they happened so long ago and he has a life and a family now. He laughs to himself. It’s rather foolish getting so caught up in the past, missing a life he barely even remembered until a few years ago. Yet during those late nights where he can barely remember how to sleep, Taako curled up against him snoring loudly, Kravitz can’t help but dwell on his memories. 

He remembers homes empty of furniture but filled with loud voices. He remembers long days, bouncing between houses tutoring rich children who were made to learn piano, violin, or any other respectable instrument followed by incredible evenings in the theatre district accompanying whatever plays theatre troupes, who were willing to pay, were performing. 

He remembers the plague. It had started off as a rumor, spread around late at night. It was said it started because of necromancy, people improperly practicing the magic of the dead. People feared that the Raven Queen had sent down the illness in order to punish those who tried to outrun Her laws. Everyone assumed that they were safe just because they hadn’t touched the arcane art that She forbade long ago. In hindsight they were all foolish. 

The illness started with a fever. It lasted for a couple days before seemingly breaking. The infected would start feeling lethargic becoming increasingly weaker as the weeks continued. The fever would then return even worse than before accompanied by splitting migraines and nausea. Before long the afflicted would have horrible chest pain and would continuously cough up blood resulting in difficulty breathing. Death seemed like a blessing after being in constant pain for weeks upon end. 

Kravitz is intimately familiar with the symptoms. He remembers when he began to feel ill. He had just finished playing music for a theatre troupe that had been performing an elven tragedy. He had been feeling off all day but he figured that whatever he was feeling would be fixed by getting some some sleep. Obviously that wasn’t the case. Kravitz woke up the following morning feeling absolutely terrible. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to stay in bed and sleep forever but Kravitz was also fond of having enough money to afford a place to sleep and food so he ignored whatever messages his body was telling him. It wasn’t until when the fever returned did Kravitz figure out what was happening. 

Kravitz doesn’t remember much after that. He remembers being constantly in pain and not being sure of what was real and what was a fever dream. He also remembers being taken care of, of being fed soup, and gentle hands braiding his hair and tucking him in bed. He’s not sure who would have cared enough for him to be constantly taking care of him but he gets the distinct feeling that he was worried for them and how they would be able to cope with his death. 

Presently Kravitz doesn’t feel any particular strong emotions towards these two individuals who took care of him while he was sick. He knows deep down that when he was alive he loved them very much but currently Kravitz is indifferent towards them. It was considerate of them to take care of him however it’s not like any of their efforts would have mattered. The plague killed all who were infected, making the considerate actions of his caretakers reckless, and dangerous. They would have been better off leaving him on the street the die instead of further exposing themselves to the illness. 

Kravitz supposes it doesn’t matter anyways. He isn’t sure how long it has been since he died but he knows that it has been long enough that all he knew are surely deceased as well. 

However, the more Kravitz dwells on his life the more curious he gets. He knows the people who cared for him when he was dying couldn’t have been his parents. His mother died when he was a child and his father was never in the picture. He supposes they could have been friends but he can’t imagine being close to anyone that they would risk their lives for him. 

Logically Kravitz knows he shouldn’t be letting this bother him. But it eats at him for weeks before the Raven Queen confronts him about his unease. As an emissary of the Raven Queen Kravitz is essentially just an extension of Her being resulting in Her already knowing his troubles. And even if She wasn’t an omniscient god She is practically Kravitz’s mother and considering how long the two have known each other it’s natural that She would enquire about his well being.

Kravitz is lucky that the Raven Queen already knows of his troubles because he doesn’t even know where to begin explaining what is bothering him. The Raven Queen doesn’t bother manifesting a room when Kravitz is the only one in her presence. Neither of them have real bodies and together they simply exist in a grey void filled with smoke. 

Kravitz drifts, in a sense, relaxing in the embrace of the Raven Queen as She makes small adjustments to his physical form. The Raven Queen comforts Kravitz as She helps him remember his past life more fully than he ever hoped for.   
Kravitz’s story beings with his mother, a kind elven woman who kept her heart close guarded to her chest. She fell in love with a drow, a man who loved as freely as he could. The two courted for years before getting married on a bright, summer day. A hundred years after their wedding the twins were born, a girl and a boy named Lydia and Edward. The couple was ecstatic and eagerly threw themselves into parenthood. Lydia and Edward grew up happily. Though the family was not wealthy, they lived a comfortable life. There were some meager attempts to teach the twins magic, but if they had an affinity for the magical arts it wasn’t of the respectable kind and so the attempts were abandoned. However the pair excelled at the art of sewing. The two were often found parading their creations around the halls of their home. 

Unfortunately the good times the family experienced were fated to come to an abrupt end. Perhaps if they hadn’t Kravitz would have had a different life, however Istus works in mysterious ways. Lydia and Edward’s father died suddenly when they were 60 years old. His death was sudden and unexpected and left Kravitz’s mother alone with two young elves to care for by herself. Kravitz’s mother was devastated. She had planned to spend forever with her one true love only to be left alone in the worst way possible. She threw herself into her work in a desperate attempt to flee from the grief that plagued her after her husband’s death. 

While working one night as a bartender she met a human man. He was incredibly kind, charming, and tipped her well. He had lost his husband as well and the two bonded over their mutual losses, forming a sort of companionship. He was only passing through town, staying for a couple weeks in order to gather supplies, rest, and recuperate before continuing on his journey. On the last day before he was supposed to leave the two met up in order to say goodbye. They certainly didn’t intend for their meeting to go the way it did, but they had each had one drink too many and one thing led to another. The man left the following day leaving no way of contacting him and nine months later Kravitz was born. 

Lydia and Edward were thrilled with their baby brother. Kravitz absolutely worshipped the ground they walked on and the twins often found Kravitz tottering after them as they went about their daily business. Their mother tried to keep the twins from having to take the brunt of the childcare, afterall, they were only 65 when Kravitz was born, still practically children for elves. However her efforts were futile. She soon contracted an illness only a couple years after Kravitz was born. No longer able to work the twins were left to both provide for their family and care for their sick mother and their toddler brother. 

Compared to her husband’s, her death was long and drawn out. Expected by all but just as shocking and impactful when it happened. The twins were given very little reprieve. They threw themselves into their work not giving themselves any time to grieve the loss of both their parents. They knew that they would be able to make it. They had each other and they had to be strong for their little brother. Lydia and Edward knew with both their hearts that they were going to do everything that they could to protect Kravitz, and no matter what they were not going to lose him. 

Lydia and Edward worked tirelessly to care for their brother. Day and night they put their sewing skills to use mending and creating new garments in addition to taking up odd jobs in order to keep a roof over their brother’s head. Kravitz certainly didn’t make it easy for them. When he was 10 he begged them for months for piano lessons. Lessons for any instrument were not cheap and Lydia and Edward had no idea who to even ask. 

They eventually found a woman who was willing to teach Kravitz and in return the twins would do some housework for her. Kravitz was overjoyed, and for the twins, his happiness was worth any troubles they had to go through. 

Kravitz took to music just like how Lydia and Edward took to sewing and making clothes. As Kravitz grew older and he became more confident in his musical skills, he began to learn more instruments. He knew enough of the theory to learn new instruments on his own and soon all of his spare time was learning any instrument his siblings could afford to buy or steal for him. Kravitz soon began helping his siblings out by performing on street corners in order to get any extra gold he could. The more he played the more it was well known throughout town how wide his musical repertoire was. He was soon approached by families, often wealthy families though he was occasionally approached by families in similar situations as his own, offering to pay him to teach their children. 

They were happy for many years. Kravitz revels in the happy memories he had with his siblings, though he knows how this story ends. 

It ends with them spending weeks caring for the last family member they have left. It ends with them spending countless sleepless nights cursing fate for taking away everyone they ever loved. It ends with them discovering necromancy.

Sleepless nights spent feeling helpless turned to sleepless nights spent sneaking away into the dead of the night to raise the dead. 

Lydia and Edward’s affinity for fashion could not be compared to the way they took to necromancy. As soon as they touched their first necromantic tomb, magic began to flow through their veins. As their power grew they began to be able to feel the life leaving their little brother. The more they felt his life leaving him the more afraid they became. The more desperate they became.

It started with an offhand suggestion, then devolved into days of studying, into creating the perfect ritual to extend their brother’s life. Kravitz doesn’t even want to think about the intricate details that went into the construction of this ritual. He doesn’t want to think about how much his siblings sacrificed for him. He knows that it was his time to die and that anything other than death would have destroyed his soul but he can’t help but feel incredibly guilty for leaving them alone and then forgetting about them completely. 

Kravitz doesn’t remember the ritual itself, doesn’t want to remember it. Though he does remember how much it hurt. The pain he felt as the dagger plunged into his chest and cut away his heart as he lay, still alive, on the stone table in the middle of the woods. He remembers his soul struggling to leave, to return to the astral plane but being tethered through unnatural means to his undead body on the material plane. 

Kravitz remembers the feel of the Raven Queen plucking his soul out of his chest, cradling him close to Her chest as She began to undo the destruction his siblings had unknowingly wrought upon his soul.

He remembers Her offering him a choice. By the strictest of the laws of death, Kravitz’s soul should have been locked away in the depths of the eternal stockade as he had consented to the darkest of necromantic rituals. He could either be sent to live out the rest of eternity in the eternal stockade, or he could enter Her retinue, forever being in service to Her till the end of time. 

Kravitz doesn’t want to leave the embrace of his Queen. He feels safe here drifting in Her presence, remembering his past life. He isn’t sure how long he spends in the astral plane, time doesn’t work the same in the astral plane as it does in the material plane. 

If he didn’t have a family waiting for him back on the material plane perhaps Kravitz would have stayed forever, safe in the embrace of his Queen. In another time Kravitz would have spent years grieving over the loss of what he could have had. In another time Kravitz would have never even remembered in the first place. 

However in this time, Kravitz opens a rift directly into the kitchen of his home and welcomes the warm embrace of his husband. In the dead of night when he can barely remember to sleep he no longer agonizes over half formed memories of a life he barely remembers. Instead he grieves over his death and the loss of his siblings, but he learns how to move on. 

Kravitz closes his eyes, and he sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> If you enjoyed this please leave a comment and kudos :)
> 
> You can come say hi to me on tumblr at unbeanlievable.tumblr.com


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